Mixture of architectural styles, with an emphasis on the Neo-Romanian order, in a grand 1920s country mansion from the Romanian province of Wallachia (©Valentin Mandache)

Romania has vast swathes of farming land, which were developed on a large scale starting with mid c19th once the Danube and the straits Bosphorus and Dardanelles waterways were freed from Ottoman control, allowing massive grain exports from the region to the industrial centres of Victorian Europe (see my article describing a Victorian barn from southern Romania built as part of that economic transformation). The local aristocrats and land owners administered their farms from impressive country mansions, called “conac” in Romanian, a word of Turkish origin (see a more extensive article about a typical such mansion: the Casota conac). The conacs were built in a variety of styles, according to the money available and the fashion of the period from French fin de siècle to Neo-Romanian and Art Deco. The interesting example in the image above is from the village of Cornatelu in Wallachia and boasts mainly a Neo-Romanian architecture, typical of mid 1920s with some French echoes, especially in the roof shape and ornaments. During the communist regime these mansions were confiscated and transformed in collective farm headquarters. Many were badly damaged, especially in the last 20 years of regime change in Romania, characterised by imperfect property legislation concerning the returning of property to the rightful owners. Some conacs are now on the market, but due to the huge property bubble of the last few years in Romania and immature market mentality of local property owners, have inflated, unrealistic prices, in many instances several times more expensive than c18th French châteaux or similar period mansions from Italy.

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Historic houses of Romania collage (©Valentin Mandache)

I composed the image above from 60 selected photographs taken during my fieldwork this year, mostly in Bucharest, but also Iasi (NE Romania) and Sinaia (the Transylvanian Alps). In my opinion the collage is extremely suggestive of the exuberant historic architecture found within the territory of Romania: a peculiar crossroad of Western, especially French, and Central European influences blended together on a Balkan background with old Ottoman echoes. I hope the pot-pourri of houses, decorations and ornaments, often painted in garish colours, would give you a more wholesome image of the vast field represented by Romania’s historic architecture. I also use a version of this collage for my Twitter page background, have a look here: http://twitter.com/historo

***********************************************

I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Longmen town in Hanchen city, Shaanxi Province (陕西省韩城市龙门镇) has large-scaled industrial development. Environment is very seriously polluted there. April 8, 2008

In Inner Mongolia there were 2 “black dragons” from the Lasengmiao Power Plant (内蒙古拉僧庙发电厂) covering the nearby villages. July 26, 2005

There doesn’t seem to be any way around the fact that if a country wants to industrialise on a massive scale, pollution is an unfortunate and initially uncontrollable by-product. It’s a pattern that’s been repeated around the world many times in many places. Most of the rivers of Europe, Russia and the US were hugely polluted to the extent they were devoid of aquatic life as these areas industrialised. Cleanup comes later, driven by protest and legislation, but initially it is secondary to production.

The photographs show that China’s industrialisation is no different. They capture a modern version of the Dickensian nightmare experienced by many of the major English cities during industrialisation in the 19th century.

These photographs act not only as a documentation of this process of modernisation, but also as a form of protest and therefore as a potential catalyst for change. For this reason, on October 14, 2009, at the 30th annual awards ceremony of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund in New York City the photographer Lu Guang (卢广) from People’s Republic of China won the $30,000 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography. His documentary project is aptly titled “Pollution in China.”

For all additional photographs, click here.

Fan Jai Zhuang in Anyang City, Henan province, (河南安阳市范家庄) there is only one wall separating this village from the steelmaking furnaces. The villagers live in this heavily polluted environment where the village is under the iron rain every day. March 24, 2008

Guiyu, Guangdong province, (广东省贵屿镇) rivers and reservoirs have been contaminated, the villager is washing in a seriously polluted pond. November 25, 2005

In Ma’anshan, Anhui province (安徽马鞍山), along the Yangtze River there are many small-scaled Iron selection factories and plastic processing plants. Large amounts of sewage discharged into the Yangtze River June 18, 2009

Soil by Yangtze River, was polluted by Anhui Province Ma’anshan Chemical Industrial District (安徽省马鞍山化工园区). June 26, 2009

Hebei Province Shexian Tianjin Iron and steel plant (河北省涉县天津钢铁厂) is a heavily polluting company. Company scale is still growing, seriously affecting the lives of local residents. March 18, 2008

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Late 1930s Art Deco office building with a well designed ocean cruise liner upper deck like top floor, Icoanei area, Bucharest. The edifice is marked by a red spot board (above left hand side entrance) affixed by the city authorities, indicating serious structural weakness in case of earthquake. (©Valentin Mandache)

Dear Historic Houses of Romania readers,

I have a new website address for my bolg at www.historo.wordpress.com (domain name derived from ‘Historic Houses of Romania’), with an entirely new and dynamic look. I very much hope you will like the new format. All my old articles and images are also contained within the new site, so you should not have any problems in accessing them there. For one month between 1 Nov. ‘09 and 1 Dec. ‘09, I will post simultaneously, in order to avoid confusions and allow for a smooth transition, my forthcoming architectural history articles and images on both old (‘viapontica’) and new (‘historo’) sites. After that date www.historo.wordpress.com will become my sole active blog site dedicated to the Historic Houses of Romania.

Best regards,

Valentin

***********************************************

I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Late 1930s Art Deco office building with a well designed ocean cruise liner upper deck like top floor, Icoanei area, Bucharest. The edifice is marked by a red spot board (above left hand side entrance) affixed by the city authorities, indicating serious structural weakness in case of earthquake. (©Valentin Mandache)

***********************************************

I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

As expected, attempts to broker a deal between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union have been unsuccessful. Mike Macnair examines why Royal Mail, encouraged by the government, has been determined to push ahead with confrontation, and looks at the implications of this decision

A Sunday Times front-page headline reads: “Brown faces winter of discontent” (October 25). In other words, this is not the only industrial dispute in the pipeline at the moment. There are a whole range of them expected to come to a head in the next six months.

There is a risk – one that would not be at all surprising, as it is normal to the British political cycle – that the last months of this Labour government will be characterised by large-scale industrial disputes and substantial disruption. This will therefore see an increasing degree of support for the Tories from suburban middle class voters due to the perceived lack of Labour control over the trade unions. Certainly the Tories are already winning a substantial number of votes. Nonetheless, the fear of a “winter of discontent” is plainly an element in the calculations of the government in relation to its attitude toward the current postal dispute.

The media are producing their usual outpouring of anti-strike propaganda. In particular it is said that Royal Mail is habitually losing money – surprise, surprise! Most postal services across Europe are subsidised. Even the early privately owned Thurn und Taxis postal service back in 17th century Germany had to have state-backed monopoly rights, for the very simple reason that a profit could not – and still cannot – be made without them. A universal postal service is, precisely, public infrastructure. Privatising the postal service or requiring it to make profits is like selling off the public highways in pieces or prohibiting public expenditure on ‘unprofitable’ repairs to roads and bridges.

It is true that the universal postal service is, in some senses, of decreasing use because people have turned to email and other forms of electronic communication. The same has been the case in relation to businesses for quite some time: private couriers offering same-day delivery were used for some time before fax and email became routine.

So there is lower demand for postal services than there has been in the past. The government has been looking for ways to undermine wages and conditions, drastically reduce its pensions commitment, casualise the workforce and hopefully even get rid of the universal service obligation. This assault is aimed at creating conditions for privatising the postal service – government subsidies would be withdrawn without too much worry about the major losers: people living in the countryside.

There would actually be some losses for business out of this policy. Who will deliver all the junk mail – probably the bulk of most post bags these days? Equally, online mail order operations like Amazon could suffer, as it is unlikely that private couriers could actually deliver with the same coverage and at the same price.

The government and its servants in Royal Mail management demand ‘modernisation’. What this actually means is not primarily automation. That claim is bullshit. What it means is a major speed-up, attacks on working conditions and a move to, in effect, piece work, resulting in people not getting paid for a full shift. The language of ‘modernisation’ is merely code for a huge attack on the workforce.

Provocations

In reality there has been industrial guerrilla warfare in Royal Mail locally for at least four or five years. Certainly there were major disputes going on in the more militant sorting offices as far back as the last general election. It was clearly decided in the spring/summer of this year to bring this simmering guerrilla warfare to a head, and have a massive, national confrontation with the CWU.

I say ‘clearly decided’ because it is obvious that in the last six to nine months there has been an escalation of unilateral action by management in the form of provocations, victimisations, etc. Actions that can only be intended to trigger local action and a climate of militancy, leading to a massive vote in support of industrial action. It is equally clear that management (and behind them business secretary Peter Mandelson) intended, as Thatcher and co intended in the 1984-85 miners’ strike, to control the timing of the national dispute. Here the point is if possible to break the union before we get into the Christmas run-up, which is the peak of the mail service business.

Similarly Thatcher aimed to bring out the miners before the overtime ban had reduced the coal stocks to the point where there would be forced power cuts. These tactics have been reflected in the political sphere, with absolute and complete intransigence on the part of Mandelson. And with Mandelson’s unequivocal backing, the Royal Mail management has stood firm to its assertion that it will not go to the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service without a pure and unambiguous guarantee from the CWU that there will be no strikes. But  the CWU could not deliver this even if it wanted to, because most of the industrial action has been local, over which the national union has less direct control.

Of course, this is not all one-sided. The CWU executive is generally seen among the membership as a militant leadership, and it, too, has been using the period of local and guerrilla struggles to prepare for the larger struggle which has now arrived.

What we have seen in the last months in relation to this dispute is therefore the run-up to a major class confrontation just like in 1984-85. There is an intention in government – at least among Peter Mandelson and his co-thinkers – and among Royal Mail management, to have a big confrontation and inflict a massive defeat on the CWU workers similar to that of the miners’ strike. This is expected to knock on the head any serious industrial militancy in the next six to nine months, as it will be an object lesson to other unions and other workers.

It will also be an object lesson in a second sense. The Labour government will demonstrate to capital, and to the capitalist media, that they are a safe hand on the tiller, that it is possible for a Labour government to smash an industrial offensive of the working class before it gets off the ground, and therefore capital should leave Labour in place rather than back Tory leader David Cameron.

The bourgeoisie has its concerns over Cameron. Yes, there is at the moment massive support for the Tories. Yes, the media have been backing him. But there are worries about how safe Cameron and shadow chancellor George Osborne will be as managers of the economy, at a time when quite a lot of media commentators are worrying about when the second shoe is going to drop in relation to the economic crisis.

There are also worries that a Cameron government might tip relations with Europe so far into Eurosceptic territory that Britain can no longer build alliances to block further EU integration. This is a central part of the role Britain plays for the United States in Europe: controlling a possible global rival by building alliances against Franco-German integration proposals.

So there are reasons for the capitalist class to have concerns about a Cameron administration. And if the Labour government can show, in these circumstances, that it can break a substantial public sector trade union, derecognise it and casualise its workforce, then Labour might, from that point of view, be in with a chance of regaining some of its lost bourgeois and middle class support prior to the next general election. There are, then, clear political calculations why this government might be thinking about doing a ‘Thatcher on the miners’ job in relation to the CWU.

Labour Party

In discussing the government’s policy I have referred particularly to Peter Mandelson. The reason is not merely that he is the relevant minister, but that there are indications that Gordon Brown is rather less up for a full-on confrontation (see Financial Times October 24); the failed TUC-sponsored talks (without the precondition demanded by Mandelson and management that the strikes be called off) represented a slight retreat by the government.

Behind this is a fundamental political fact. For Thatcher to set up a major class confrontation with the aim of breaking the National Union of Mineworkers was ‘extreme’ from the point of view of the 1940s-70s, but perfectly consistent with the longer historical role of the Tory Party. For a Labour government to actually smash one of its own major affiliated unions in a major national class confrontation would be something different altogether. Rather than allowing Labour to retain power, it would be more likely to break up the Labour Party. The result could be a split by the unions and the left, or – as in the 1931 fall of the Labour administration and the formation of the National government – a party revolt, leading to a split of the right to join up with the Tories to force the confrontation through.

True, the current Labour government since 1997 has faced down trade union action more than once (for example in the case of the firefighters). But in general the workers’ movement had not responded in a militant way. What appears to be different this time is the willingness of the movement to fight. A major conflict between the government and the CWU would pose severe problems for the Labour Party, that is for sure.

If Brown does back down from an all-out confrontation, it will be presented by the media as yet another Brown U-turn. Brown’s reputation for dithering not only reflects a hostile media, but is a real phenomenon. Unlike cynical careerists such as Blair, Mandelson and co, Brown was a genuine convert to neoliberalism from the left; hence, the 2007-08 crash shook his convictions and left him rudderless in policy terms. If Labour does go ahead with a major attack on the CWU, and the result is not a major split in the party, we in the CPGB will certainly need to reassess our current judgment that Labour remains a bourgeois workers’ party: the event would look like the party finally ditching the ‘workers’ side of the contradiction.

But, whatever exact diagnosis we make, if the government goes ahead with plans to break and derecognise one of the Labour Party’s major affiliated trade unions, this will be a fundamental shift in politics and in particular of Labour Party politics.

Our tasks

I have no idea why CWU general secretary Billy Hayes let himself be reported as saying he is in a stronger position than Arthur Scargill was (The Times October 17).

True, strike action has received very clear majority support in a ballot. But the actual underlying sectional economic positions are if anything weaker than those of the NUM in the 1980s, and the ability of the postal workers to sustain their internal solidarity in relation to a furious media offensive is likely to be less than the miners. The miners lived in concentrated communities, had networks of solidarity outside the pits in place, and indeed, as a workforce, were highly concentrated. Postal workers are concentrated only in sorting offices, but atomised when out on the streets. So the actual position of the CWU is relatively weak in the purely trade unionist, sectionalist-syndicalist sense of its ability to disrupt the economy.

However, this situation is to a considerable extent general in the service sector (and, indeed in some industrial sectors dominated by highly automated plant with small workforces). In this sense in future disputes the CWU will indeed look like a union with strong sectional power. But this is entirely consistent with my fundamental point: namely simple reliance on ‘industrial muscle’ – ie, sectional ability to disrupt production – is decreasingly adequate as a strategy to defend working people’s immediate interests.

Even if the sectional strength is less than Billy Hayes’ Times interview suggested, the possibilities of the strike winning broad public support are real. Precisely because of the increasing atmosphere of class confrontation in the dispute, because of the intransigent alignment of the government behind Royal Mail management and because we see the unanimity of the bourgeois media behind ideas most clearly expressed in the Daily Mail headline, “The lemming strike is on” (October 22), there has been some public reaction against the capitalist united front. We are beginning to see some, inchoate, inadequately politically represented, support for the postal workers. A poll reported in The Independent on October 24 showed 50% supporting the postal workers and only 25% supporting management and Mandelson.

So where does that leave us? It looks like we are headed for a major class confrontation with a serious and unambiguous effort to break the CWU, and thereby give an object lesson to the rest of the trade union movement, in the hope of preventing a “winter of discontent”.

What should the political left be doing? There are two sorts of task: simple solidarity ones, and those that are specifically political. The first of these are tasks that the labour movement and left will probably do well in spite of divisions and disorganisation. Raising the issue in other trade unions, getting CWU speakers to meetings, organising solidarity campaigns and support groups, collecting for strikers in hardship and so on. Promoting the idea of solidarity action: thus, for example, in Unite the question of instructing the managers not to scab has been posed.

The Socialist Workers Party is therefore entirely correct to advocate the rapid formation of strike support groups, which can play a critical role in mobilising public support and solidarity. There is also the question of international solidarity. Even if this is only symbolic in character – as, in this dispute, it inevitably is – such international solidarity would strengthen the morale of strikers and assist the struggle for broader solidarity within Britain.

A specific task lies in the student movement, because traditionally students have been recruited as casuals by the Royal Mail. We must agitate against students acting as scabs – this is an issue to be raised, addressed and spread. Indeed the general attitude towards scabs is critical. Casualisation is already extensive in the Royal Mail, partly inevitably because of the seasonal nature of the business. Nevertheless it is vital to get across the message that during this dispute taking casual jobs is scabbing. This is partly a job for the student movement; but it is also a job for strikers themselves: the movement needs to revive the basic ideas of non-cooperation with scabs, and that picket lines mean don’t cross. And it is also a job for PCS members working in job centres and so on: scab ‘casual’ jobs in Royal Mail are not ‘normal’ jobs to which the unemployed should be sent and PCS members should refuse to fill them.

Political tasks

The other aspect, where the far left is traditionally much weaker, concerns specifically political tasks. The far left is bad at these because they are the tasks of a party. Solidarity campaigns are necessarily broad movements of all those of whatever political complexion who wish to support the strikers. Hence they necessarily find it hard to address the politics of the strike.

For example, there is an early day motion opposing Royal Mail management’s intransigence, etc. Has your local Labour MP signed it? If not, why not? If your local Labour MP is supporting ‘modernisation’ and all that crap, perhaps it is time that his/her constituency office or surgery should be besieged by strikers and their supporters.

This sounds like a solidarity campaign-type action. But actually it turns out that broad solidarity organisations find it extraordinarily hard to undertake campaigns to besiege scab Labour MPs or whatever, because the Labour lefts and the trade union officials would be unwilling to pursue them. Stop the War Coalition in the 2005 election is an excellent example of the problem – it was unable to make any recommendation on who to vote for. Even in the 1984-85 miners’ strike this issue was posed, as the union leadership was very reluctant either to enter on the terrain of politics itself or for the support groups to do so.

What was said above about the Labour Party means that an absolutely central issue is the question of sharpening the divisions between left and right which a major confrontation with the CWU will inevitably produce. Parts of the left will undoubtedly call for the CWU to disaffiliate from Labour. But at the moment that would be a counsel of retreat and a road to depoliticising the union: neither ‘son of No2EU’ nor any of the other left groups and ‘unity projects’ presently represents a realistic alternative electoral project. What is immediately needed is for the CWU to adopt a tactic of reducing general financial contributions to Labour, targeting any support on Labour MPs and candidates who have backed the strike, and also being willing to back selected workers’ movement candidates outside Labour; if this leads to the party leadership seeking to remove affiliation, the union should fight back.

In other words, the requirement is not (yet) to run away from the Labour Party, but to promote and sharpen a fight both within and outside it against the most pro-capitalist wing of the party.

Equally important is explaining both the character of what is going on, that it is a class confrontation motivated and driven by politics. That is a task for a Communist Party, for communist papers, and for leaflets addressing the broad masses in the districts where they live. The far-left press and the splintered groups do part of these jobs, but we are too limited by our divisions and the left press and leaflets often restrict themselves to basic trade union solidarity – the Morning Star as a daily is closer to having the resources, but prints only what suits leading union officials.

Strike support groups cannot substitute for these tasks, for the reasons already given. Neither can the splintered organised left and the even more splintered ‘independents’. A coalition of the far left could begin to do some of them. In doing so such a coalition would be beginning to act as a party. But for the moment most of the far-left groups fetishise either their own independence as ‘the revolutionary party’ (all 57-plus of them); or ‘broad unity’, which leads to an inability to take political action because it has to include some element of the ‘official lefts’; or both at the same time. So, as valuable as a far-left coalition for the purposes of political solidarity with the postal workers would be, it probably will not happen.

CPGB

Realistically, the CPGB cannot play this role either, because of our very limited resources. We can and should argue for Communist Students to campaign for students not to scab on the postal workers: a campaign which could be conducted in unity with other left student groups and could be very successful. Our contacts, through Hands Off the People of Iran, with the Iranian workers’ movement, can and should be used to promote symbolic international solidarity with the strike.

More generally, what we can do is largely limited to the use of the Weekly Worker, with which we can propagandise around the idea that solidarity has to be more than just hardship support and agitation in the trade union movement; that solidarity has to address the politics, the MPs and the political context of the strike.

The paper also needs to make an effort to contact CWU militants in the localities and get their stories. In spite of the fact that this is something the whole of the left is doing, in the context of the bourgeois media overwhelmingly giving the management and government version of the story, low-level exposures of the provocations management has been engaged in is a useful activity. We need to develop more and broader contacts across different localities, and get the information into the paper.

Equally militants and the left need information about the political alignments within the CWU and about what is going on in the dispute at national level. Are the far-lefts, some of whom sit on the CWU national executive, acting as communists or merely as trade union officials? We need to try to get the information and publicise it.

Across all this, the fundamental point is to use all the resources we have to try and develop the sense of the political context of the dispute, its significance and the question of solidarity of the working class as a whole with the strikers.

As expected, attempts to broker a deal between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union have been unsuccessful. Mike Macnair examines why Royal Mail, encouraged by the government, has been determined to push ahead with confrontation, and looks at the implications of this decision

A Sunday Times front-page headline reads: “Brown faces winter of discontent” (October 25). In other words, this is not the only industrial dispute in the pipeline at the moment. There are a whole range of them expected to come to a head in the next six months.

There is a risk – one that would not be at all surprising, as it is normal to the British political cycle – that the last months of this Labour government will be characterised by large-scale industrial disputes and substantial disruption. This will therefore see an increasing degree of support for the Tories from suburban middle class voters due to the perceived lack of Labour control over the trade unions. Certainly the Tories are already winning a substantial number of votes. Nonetheless, the fear of a “winter of discontent” is plainly an element in the calculations of the government in relation to its attitude toward the current postal dispute.

The media are producing their usual outpouring of anti-strike propaganda. In particular it is said that Royal Mail is habitually losing money – surprise, surprise! Most postal services across Europe are subsidised. Even the early privately owned Thurn und Taxis postal service back in 17th century Germany had to have state-backed monopoly rights, for the very simple reason that a profit could not – and still cannot – be made without them. A universal postal service is, precisely, public infrastructure. Privatising the postal service or requiring it to make profits is like selling off the public highways in pieces or prohibiting public expenditure on ‘unprofitable’ repairs to roads and bridges.

It is true that the universal postal service is, in some senses, of decreasing use because people have turned to email and other forms of electronic communication. The same has been the case in relation to businesses for quite some time: private couriers offering same-day delivery were used for some time before fax and email became routine.

So there is lower demand for postal services than there has been in the past. The government has been looking for ways to undermine wages and conditions, drastically reduce its pensions commitment, casualise the workforce and hopefully even get rid of the universal service obligation. This assault is aimed at creating conditions for privatising the postal service – government subsidies would be withdrawn without too much worry about the major losers: people living in the countryside.

There would actually be some losses for business out of this policy. Who will deliver all the junk mail – probably the bulk of most post bags these days? Equally, online mail order operations like Amazon could suffer, as it is unlikely that private couriers could actually deliver with the same coverage and at the same price.

The government and its servants in Royal Mail management demand ‘modernisation’. What this actually means is not primarily automation. That claim is bullshit. What it means is a major speed-up, attacks on working conditions and a move to, in effect, piece work, resulting in people not getting paid for a full shift. The language of ‘modernisation’ is merely code for a huge attack on the workforce.

Provocations

In reality there has been industrial guerrilla warfare in Royal Mail locally for at least four or five years. Certainly there were major disputes going on in the more militant sorting offices as far back as the last general election. It was clearly decided in the spring/summer of this year to bring this simmering guerrilla warfare to a head, and have a massive, national confrontation with the CWU.

I say ‘clearly decided’ because it is obvious that in the last six to nine months there has been an escalation of unilateral action by management in the form of provocations, victimisations, etc. Actions that can only be intended to trigger local action and a climate of militancy, leading to a massive vote in support of industrial action. It is equally clear that management (and behind them business secretary Peter Mandelson) intended, as Thatcher and co intended in the 1984-85 miners’ strike, to control the timing of the national dispute. Here the point is if possible to break the union before we get into the Christmas run-up, which is the peak of the mail service business.

Similarly Thatcher aimed to bring out the miners before the overtime ban had reduced the coal stocks to the point where there would be forced power cuts. These tactics have been reflected in the political sphere, with absolute and complete intransigence on the part of Mandelson. And with Mandelson’s unequivocal backing, the Royal Mail management has stood firm to its assertion that it will not go to the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service without a pure and unambiguous guarantee from the CWU that there will be no strikes. But  the CWU could not deliver this even if it wanted to, because most of the industrial action has been local, over which the national union has less direct control.

Of course, this is not all one-sided. The CWU executive is generally seen among the membership as a militant leadership, and it, too, has been using the period of local and guerrilla struggles to prepare for the larger struggle which has now arrived.

What we have seen in the last months in relation to this dispute is therefore the run-up to a major class confrontation just like in 1984-85. There is an intention in government – at least among Peter Mandelson and his co-thinkers – and among Royal Mail management, to have a big confrontation and inflict a massive defeat on the CWU workers similar to that of the miners’ strike. This is expected to knock on the head any serious industrial militancy in the next six to nine months, as it will be an object lesson to other unions and other workers.

It will also be an object lesson in a second sense. The Labour government will demonstrate to capital, and to the capitalist media, that they are a safe hand on the tiller, that it is possible for a Labour government to smash an industrial offensive of the working class before it gets off the ground, and therefore capital should leave Labour in place rather than back Tory leader David Cameron.

The bourgeoisie has its concerns over Cameron. Yes, there is at the moment massive support for the Tories. Yes, the media have been backing him. But there are worries about how safe Cameron and shadow chancellor George Osborne will be as managers of the economy, at a time when quite a lot of media commentators are worrying about when the second shoe is going to drop in relation to the economic crisis.

There are also worries that a Cameron government might tip relations with Europe so far into Eurosceptic territory that Britain can no longer build alliances to block further EU integration. This is a central part of the role Britain plays for the United States in Europe: controlling a possible global rival by building alliances against Franco-German integration proposals.

So there are reasons for the capitalist class to have concerns about a Cameron administration. And if the Labour government can show, in these circumstances, that it can break a substantial public sector trade union, derecognise it and casualise its workforce, then Labour might, from that point of view, be in with a chance of regaining some of its lost bourgeois and middle class support prior to the next general election. There are, then, clear political calculations why this government might be thinking about doing a ‘Thatcher on the miners’ job in relation to the CWU.

Labour Party

In discussing the government’s policy I have referred particularly to Peter Mandelson. The reason is not merely that he is the relevant minister, but that there are indications that Gordon Brown is rather less up for a full-on confrontation (see Financial Times October 24); the failed TUC-sponsored talks (without the precondition demanded by Mandelson and management that the strikes be called off) represented a slight retreat by the government.

Behind this is a fundamental political fact. For Thatcher to set up a major class confrontation with the aim of breaking the National Union of Mineworkers was ‘extreme’ from the point of view of the 1940s-70s, but perfectly consistent with the longer historical role of the Tory Party. For a Labour government to actually smash one of its own major affiliated unions in a major national class confrontation would be something different altogether. Rather than allowing Labour to retain power, it would be more likely to break up the Labour Party. The result could be a split by the unions and the left, or – as in the 1931 fall of the Labour administration and the formation of the National government – a party revolt, leading to a split of the right to join up with the Tories to force the confrontation through.

True, the current Labour government since 1997 has faced down trade union action more than once (for example in the case of the firefighters). But in general the workers’ movement had not responded in a militant way. What appears to be different this time is the willingness of the movement to fight. A major conflict between the government and the CWU would pose severe problems for the Labour Party, that is for sure.

If Brown does back down from an all-out confrontation, it will be presented by the media as yet another Brown U-turn. Brown’s reputation for dithering not only reflects a hostile media, but is a real phenomenon. Unlike cynical careerists such as Blair, Mandelson and co, Brown was a genuine convert to neoliberalism from the left; hence, the 2007-08 crash shook his convictions and left him rudderless in policy terms. If Labour does go ahead with a major attack on the CWU, and the result is not a major split in the party, we in the CPGB will certainly need to reassess our current judgment that Labour remains a bourgeois workers’ party: the event would look like the party finally ditching the ‘workers’ side of the contradiction.

But, whatever exact diagnosis we make, if the government goes ahead with plans to break and derecognise one of the Labour Party’s major affiliated trade unions, this will be a fundamental shift in politics and in particular of Labour Party politics.

Our tasks

I have no idea why CWU general secretary Billy Hayes let himself be reported as saying he is in a stronger position than Arthur Scargill was (The Times October 17).

True, strike action has received very clear majority support in a ballot. But the actual underlying sectional economic positions are if anything weaker than those of the NUM in the 1980s, and the ability of the postal workers to sustain their internal solidarity in relation to a furious media offensive is likely to be less than the miners. The miners lived in concentrated communities, had networks of solidarity outside the pits in place, and indeed, as a workforce, were highly concentrated. Postal workers are concentrated only in sorting offices, but atomised when out on the streets. So the actual position of the CWU is relatively weak in the purely trade unionist, sectionalist-syndicalist sense of its ability to disrupt the economy.

However, this situation is to a considerable extent general in the service sector (and, indeed in some industrial sectors dominated by highly automated plant with small workforces). In this sense in future disputes the CWU will indeed look like a union with strong sectional power. But this is entirely consistent with my fundamental point: namely simple reliance on ‘industrial muscle’ – ie, sectional ability to disrupt production – is decreasingly adequate as a strategy to defend working people’s immediate interests.

Even if the sectional strength is less than Billy Hayes’ Times interview suggested, the possibilities of the strike winning broad public support are real. Precisely because of the increasing atmosphere of class confrontation in the dispute, because of the intransigent alignment of the government behind Royal Mail management and because we see the unanimity of the bourgeois media behind ideas most clearly expressed in the Daily Mail headline, “The lemming strike is on” (October 22), there has been some public reaction against the capitalist united front. We are beginning to see some, inchoate, inadequately politically represented, support for the postal workers. A poll reported in The Independent on October 24 showed 50% supporting the postal workers and only 25% supporting management and Mandelson.

So where does that leave us? It looks like we are headed for a major class confrontation with a serious and unambiguous effort to break the CWU, and thereby give an object lesson to the rest of the trade union movement, in the hope of preventing a “winter of discontent”.

What should the political left be doing? There are two sorts of task: simple solidarity ones, and those that are specifically political. The first of these are tasks that the labour movement and left will probably do well in spite of divisions and disorganisation. Raising the issue in other trade unions, getting CWU speakers to meetings, organising solidarity campaigns and support groups, collecting for strikers in hardship and so on. Promoting the idea of solidarity action: thus, for example, in Unite the question of instructing the managers not to scab has been posed.

The Socialist Workers Party is therefore entirely correct to advocate the rapid formation of strike support groups, which can play a critical role in mobilising public support and solidarity. There is also the question of international solidarity. Even if this is only symbolic in character – as, in this dispute, it inevitably is – such international solidarity would strengthen the morale of strikers and assist the struggle for broader solidarity within Britain.

A specific task lies in the student movement, because traditionally students have been recruited as casuals by the Royal Mail. We must agitate against students acting as scabs – this is an issue to be raised, addressed and spread. Indeed the general attitude towards scabs is critical. Casualisation is already extensive in the Royal Mail, partly inevitably because of the seasonal nature of the business. Nevertheless it is vital to get across the message that during this dispute taking casual jobs is scabbing. This is partly a job for the student movement; but it is also a job for strikers themselves: the movement needs to revive the basic ideas of non-cooperation with scabs, and that picket lines mean don’t cross. And it is also a job for PCS members working in job centres and so on: scab ‘casual’ jobs in Royal Mail are not ‘normal’ jobs to which the unemployed should be sent and PCS members should refuse to fill them.

Political tasks

The other aspect, where the far left is traditionally much weaker, concerns specifically political tasks. The far left is bad at these because they are the tasks of a party. Solidarity campaigns are necessarily broad movements of all those of whatever political complexion who wish to support the strikers. Hence they necessarily find it hard to address the politics of the strike.

For example, there is an early day motion opposing Royal Mail management’s intransigence, etc. Has your local Labour MP signed it? If not, why not? If your local Labour MP is supporting ‘modernisation’ and all that crap, perhaps it is time that his/her constituency office or surgery should be besieged by strikers and their supporters.

This sounds like a solidarity campaign-type action. But actually it turns out that broad solidarity organisations find it extraordinarily hard to undertake campaigns to besiege scab Labour MPs or whatever, because the Labour lefts and the trade union officials would be unwilling to pursue them. Stop the War Coalition in the 2005 election is an excellent example of the problem – it was unable to make any recommendation on who to vote for. Even in the 1984-85 miners’ strike this issue was posed, as the union leadership was very reluctant either to enter on the terrain of politics itself or for the support groups to do so.

What was said above about the Labour Party means that an absolutely central issue is the question of sharpening the divisions between left and right which a major confrontation with the CWU will inevitably produce. Parts of the left will undoubtedly call for the CWU to disaffiliate from Labour. But at the moment that would be a counsel of retreat and a road to depoliticising the union: neither ‘son of No2EU’ nor any of the other left groups and ‘unity projects’ presently represents a realistic alternative electoral project. What is immediately needed is for the CWU to adopt a tactic of reducing general financial contributions to Labour, targeting any support on Labour MPs and candidates who have backed the strike, and also being willing to back selected workers’ movement candidates outside Labour; if this leads to the party leadership seeking to remove affiliation, the union should fight back.

In other words, the requirement is not (yet) to run away from the Labour Party, but to promote and sharpen a fight both within and outside it against the most pro-capitalist wing of the party.

Equally important is explaining both the character of what is going on, that it is a class confrontation motivated and driven by politics. That is a task for a Communist Party, for communist papers, and for leaflets addressing the broad masses in the districts where they live. The far-left press and the splintered groups do part of these jobs, but we are too limited by our divisions and the left press and leaflets often restrict themselves to basic trade union solidarity – the Morning Star as a daily is closer to having the resources, but prints only what suits leading union officials.

Strike support groups cannot substitute for these tasks, for the reasons already given. Neither can the splintered organised left and the even more splintered ‘independents’. A coalition of the far left could begin to do some of them. In doing so such a coalition would be beginning to act as a party. But for the moment most of the far-left groups fetishise either their own independence as ‘the revolutionary party’ (all 57-plus of them); or ‘broad unity’, which leads to an inability to take political action because it has to include some element of the ‘official lefts’; or both at the same time. So, as valuable as a far-left coalition for the purposes of political solidarity with the postal workers would be, it probably will not happen.

CPGB

Realistically, the CPGB cannot play this role either, because of our very limited resources. We can and should argue for Communist Students to campaign for students not to scab on the postal workers: a campaign which could be conducted in unity with other left student groups and could be very successful. Our contacts, through Hands Off the People of Iran, with the Iranian workers’ movement, can and should be used to promote symbolic international solidarity with the strike.

More generally, what we can do is largely limited to the use of the Weekly Worker, with which we can propagandise around the idea that solidarity has to be more than just hardship support and agitation in the trade union movement; that solidarity has to address the politics, the MPs and the political context of the strike.

The paper also needs to make an effort to contact CWU militants in the localities and get their stories. In spite of the fact that this is something the whole of the left is doing, in the context of the bourgeois media overwhelmingly giving the management and government version of the story, low-level exposures of the provocations management has been engaged in is a useful activity. We need to develop more and broader contacts across different localities, and get the information into the paper.

Equally militants and the left need information about the political alignments within the CWU and about what is going on in the dispute at national level. Are the far-lefts, some of whom sit on the CWU national executive, acting as communists or merely as trade union officials? We need to try to get the information and publicise it.

Across all this, the fundamental point is to use all the resources we have to try and develop the sense of the political context of the dispute, its significance and the question of solidarity of the working class as a whole with the strikers.

The Art Deco staircase tower of a well renovated mid 1930s house in Mosilor area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

Dear Historic Houses of Romania readers,

I have a new website address for my bolg at www.historo.wordpress.com (domain name derived from ‘Historic Houses of Romania’), with an entirely new and dynamic look. I very much hope you will like the new format. All my old articles and images are also contained within the new site, so you should not have any problems in accessing them there. For one month between 1 Nov. ‘09 and 1 Dec. ‘09, I will post simultaneously, in order to avoid confusions and allow for a smooth transition, my forthcoming architectural history articles and images on both old (‘viapontica’) and new (‘historo’) sites. After that date www.historo.wordpress.com will become my sole active blog site dedicated to the Historic Houses of Romania.

Best regards,

Valentin

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

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If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

The Art Deco staircase tower of a well renovated mid 1930s house in Mosilor area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

]]> http://historo.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/daily-picture-28-oct-09/ Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:00:25 +0000 Valentin Mandache http://historo.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/daily-picture-28-oct-09/

1930s Art Deco facade, block of flats in Calea Victoriei area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

1930s Art Deco facade, block of flats in Calea Victoriei area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

***********************************************

I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

By Michael MacLeod

A SHERIFF told social workers to send text messages to cons during the “inevitable chaos” of the postal strike.

Thousands of Scots postal staff walked out in support of a national strike today (Thurs) over Royal Mail’s modernisation plans.

The Scottish Court Service uses traditional mail to alert criminals to attend social work meetings or interviews for background reports.

But Edinburgh Sheriff Deirdre MacNeill QC said yesterday that texting would be a more reliable option during the strike.

Presiding over a case at the capital’s Sheriff Court yesterday, she bailed an accused woman and told her: “Considering the inevitable chaos of the postal situation it might be a good idea for you to tell the social work office your mobile number.

“Ask them to send you a text instead of posting you the date of your assessment.”

It is expected around 78,000 delivery and collection workers across the UK will walk out today (Friday).

“Left with no choice”

Pickets gathered outside the Edinburgh Mail Centre yesterday morning signalling the start of the first wave of two 24-hour national strikes.

Causing disruption was “the last thing we wanted” according to the CWU’s Graham Steedman, who joined those striking outside the capital’s Cutlins Road depot.

He said: “There’s about 20 members here and that will increase as the morning goes on and people start turning up.

“We’re quite upbeat. Obviously the last thing we want is to be out on strike and causing disruption, but we were left with no choice.”

The strike had less of an impact in the South of Scotland, where post arrived as normal according to the Scottish Borders Chamber of Commerce chairman William Rodgers .

He welcomed the “sensible approach” of Royal Mail staff in the Borders.

Strike is “self-defeating”

He said: “It’s a great relief to businesses across the region that the great majority of Royal Mail staff are working as normal.

“We know from communications with postal workers that they are keenly aware of their importance to the community they serve and that their jobs are wholly rooted in the loyalty of their customers.

“It’s just common sense that any withdrawal of labour at this time would be self-defeating.

“What we all need to see is a sensible modernisation of the Royal Mail based on discussion and agreement.

“We are not so confident of deliveries tomorrow when no doubt the militancy of the large sorting offices has cut in, but meanwhile we would like to thank the staff in our own region for their sensible approach and unfailing good service.”

See more of our pictures at our Flickr site and videos at our dedicated channel,  Deadline TV.

The svelte Art Deco style lines of a former hotel edifice, built at the end of 1920s, at a time of prosperity in Romania generated by the country's oil exports. University area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

The svelte Art Deco style lines of a former hotel edifice, built at the end of 1920s, at a time of prosperity in Romania generated by the country's oil exports. University area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

“Une reprise en main du pouvoir central sur les collectivités locales “

Associé aux travaux préparatoires, l’ancien premier ministre socialiste Pierre Mauroy dénonce la “volonté recentralisatrice” de Nicolas Sarkozy et s’élève contre le procès en mauvaise gestion fait aux élus locaux.

Le Monde.fr

Voir aussi

• Collectivités locales : ce que contient la réforme Sarkozy
• Réforme des collectivités territoriales : M. Sarkozy veut rassurer

Courtesy of ForeignPolicy.Com- Jennifer Burns discusses the popularity of Ayn Rand in India.

(Article copyrighted and owned by author and ForeignPolicy.Com)

Howard Roark In New Delhi

The surprising popularity of a libertarian hero in India.

BY JENNIFER BURNS | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009

Consumer spending in the United States may be down, but an interest in Ayn Rand certainly is not. Sales of Rand’s last novel, the vigorously pro-capitalism fable Atlas Shrugged, have seen a huge leap in 2009, briefly outperforming even President Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope on Amazon’s best-seller list. Few 1,000-page, half-century-old tomes can claim so much.

Source: European Journal Palliative Care

Follow this link for the article.

Date of publication: May – June 2009

Publication Type: Online journal article

In a nutshell: Project in Northern Ireland to identify a community based, integrated, palliative care service model based on recognised needs of adults in the last year of life.

Length of Publication: 4 pages

Acknowledgement: CINAHL

A strike is supposed to represent the people, but the human voice behind the postal strikes has been largely neglected. Whatever the best solution, one thing is clear: only with better communication will it be resolved.

The ballot results of 121,000 postmen, office workers and delivery drivers were revealed on 9th October with 76% of over 80,000 voters in favour of walking out. What about the rest? 20,000 workers are not part of the union and Royal Mail claim 60% of the workforce did not vote to strike.

Astrid Fouquier, who works in a flower shop opposite Westbourne Grove Post Office, said: “I used to be a casual postal worker. The pressure of having to strike when you don’t want to is awful. You’re divided in two, because if you have problems with your pay or sickness allowance the Union backs you up – they’re really strong. But you’re either with them or against them so you have to go along if they say strike. Most postal workers just want to work – they love their job and want a wage. They don’t want to strike and do nothing.”

Even those supporting the walkout are under represented to the public. Residents in the area blame postal workers for the negative impact of strikes, but don’t seem to understand them. Andrew Waugh, a venison distributor from Portabello Road, relies heavily on Royal Mail: “It’s pretty selfish if they strike and cripple our businesses – it’s hard to see why they’re asking for more pay when everyone else is being made redundant.”

Strikers have also been criticised for resisting modernisation, but the last national strike in 2007 was settled with a ‘Pay and Modernise’ agreement. Postmen accept that cuts must be made and machines must take on some roles.

The crucial problem in this debate is not pay or modernisation, but communication. Changes brought in by Royal Mail to drive down prices, despite substantial profits, are not being discussed or qualified to those on the shop floor. This has sparked much anger.

Postman Col Roberts works at East Central Delivery Office: “In the past when things needed changing the company asked us. We feel like we’re being taken for idiots – obviously there has to be some modernisation, but there has to be a long term programme of how to implement the change.”

And it’s not just the company at fault. Union leaders are making decisions today, but some workers at the EC1 depot have had little idea what’s in store: “At the moment we strike one day every week but who knows what will happen.”

“Confusion” is how Notting Hill lawyer Sarah Baldwin describes the strike and she is right. Royal Mail seems to have shut down communication within the business; CWU are only representing a percentage of the work force; the media are leaving out the real voice of postal workers; and the Government, which owns Royal Mail Group PLC, refuses to speak out.

The Royal Mail has long been a pillar of communication in Britain. Without communication it will crumble.

Art Nouveau style decorative panel, indicating 1898, in typical Art Nouveau style digits, as the inauguration year of the building, Romana area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

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I endeavor through this daily image series to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in locating the property, specialist research, planning permissions, restoration project management, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Internet, internet, internet ! L’Elysée mise tout, désormais, sur sa communication via le web. D’abord en annonçant l’ouverture, à l’occasion du sommet climat de Copenhague prévu en décembre, d’un compte sur le site de socialisation en direct Twitter où sera détaillée “la démarche” du président Nicolas Sarkozy durant cette négociation, en direct. Ensuite par le lancement du blog de la première dame, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. Enfin, par toute une stratégie de communication thématique sur Facebook nonobstant des exclusivités en “off” sur ledit site.

En baisse dans les sondages, le chef de l’Etat veut maîtriser entièrement sa communication « descendante ». L’Élysée se doit d’être à la pointe de la modernité en matière d’Internet et d’équipements audiovisuels, surtout dans la perspective de 2012…

Le détail du budget 2010 de la présidence de la République montre que Nicolas Sarkozy n’a pas l’intention de lésiner sur ces dépenses. “Afin de conforter l’action de la Présidence, les moyens techniques, notamment dans le domaine de la communication, devront être modernisés”, souligne le “bleu” budgétaire de la mission “pouvoirs publics” du projet de loi de finances.

Le chantier de remise à niveau du site Internet entrepris en 2009 “sera poursuivi en 2010”. “L’amélioration des moyens au service de l’audiovisuel sera recherchée”, indique le document budgétaire. Des objectifs qui viennent gonfler légèrement le poste consacré aux “équipements et travaux”. Ce dernier va passer de 1,395 million d’euros à 2,49 millions entre 2009 et 2010, soit un bond de 79 %.

“Une volonté de modernisation et d’amélioration des équipements doit accompagner les actions entreprises par les équipes de l’Élysée, justifie le document. À ce titre, figurent parmi les priorités les matériels et équipements propres à la communication : audiovisuel, Internet, télécommunication et informatique.” Le renouvellement d’une partie du matériel est programmé ainsi que le “développement des services nomades” et la “modernisation du parc de terminaux sécurisés”.

Au passage, on apprend que la rénovation de la chaîne TV/vidéo-diffusion est aussi “envisagée pour 2010”. Une “expertise” est aussi en cours quant à l’amélioration du studio de télévision installé à la Présidence.

Échaudé par les derniers couacs qui ont entaché l’image présidentielle, Nicolas Sarkozy entend ainsi reprendre la main en instaurant une palette d’outils destinés à véhiculer une information plus contrôlée et à contrer l’impact négatif des récents dérapages entre le « pauv’con » présidentiel et les « blagues » auvergnates d’Hortefeux.

Ainsi, sur le terrain du Net, le site de l’Élysée présente quelques nouveautés comme la diffusion de reportages et plus récemment la diffusion du « making off » de l’interview du chef de l’État depuis New York dans les journaux de 20H00 de France 2 et TF1 qui, par ailleurs, obtient un nombre très satisfaisant de visionnages depuis sa mise en ligne sur Dailymotion.

Le web c’est bien, le maîtriser c’est mieux
Si Ségolène Royal répète à l’envi qu’elle a servi de modèle aux équipes d’Obama sur le versant participatif de la campagne des présidentielles de 2007 (ce qui reste à être démontré mais qui fait toujours sourire les professionnels, surtout américains…), le candidat Sarkozy n’était pas en reste sur les plateformes communautaires, loin s’en faut.

Grâce à sa « web dream team », l’UMP s’était étendue comme une trainée de poudre sur tous réseaux sociaux et plus particulièrement sur Facebook où l’on dénombrait d’innombrables groupes de soutien au futur chef de l’Etat. De quoi en découdre avec les équipes structurées de « Désirs d’avenir » et avec la « Netscouade » (équipe web de campagne de Ségolène Royal).

Pourtant, une fois passé l’enthousiasme de la campagne, force est de constater que le suivi des bonnes intentions technologiques n’est pas toujours au rendez-vous. La vigilance s’estompe. Pour preuve, le groupe officiel de l’UMP sur Facebook comptant 3500 militants a été victime de pirates du Net.

Ces « Kamikazes » s’attaquent aux groupes en déshérence et dépourvus d’administrateurs. Ils ont ainsi pu ouvertement détourner le logo de l’UMP, écrire des insultes par mailing interne et écorcher l’image du parti de la majorité sans que les patrons de l’Internet du gouvernement ne réagissent, plus prompts à vendre leur professionnalisme sur les plateaux de télévisions.

De quoi provoquer la colère des militants qui avaient pourtant fait remonter l’information depuis plus de deux semaines : « je ne comprends pas ce que foutent les gens de l’Internet à l’UMP, qui fait quoi ? Que font ces types qui se pavanent sur Envoyé Spécial et dans les médias à longueur de journée ? » (source : INTELINK PRESS – juillet 2009).

Si aujourd’hui, tous les communicants et les acteurs politiques reconnaissent au web une puissance radicale des messages diffusés, ils ne sont pas encore totalement conscients de la réactivité immédiate et parfois ravageuse que les dits messages peuvent générer sur la toile.

La démocratie sur la toile : un leurre !
L’interactivité revêt assurément des atours très démocratiques mais le « 2.0 » est souvent dangereux. C’est l’endroit idéal des critiques, du déversement de frustrations et des attentes populaires sans risque.

Sous pseudo, caché derrière un ordinateur, en pantoufle à la maison ou en costume au bureau, le citoyen se transforme très souvent en révolutionnaire, en syndicaliste, en journaliste satirique de la première heure. Chaque mot et chaque image, sont observés, disséqués et détournés selon l’argument ou le leader qu’il défend. La seule loi est celle du « buzz », c’est-à-dire du nombre de lecteurs que l’information aura recueillie. Peu importe la véracité des propos, de l’argument, de la posture ou de la sincérité de l’information initialement diffusée. Le web est un monde radical, impitoyable.

L’exemple du lancement du nouveau site Internet de Ségolène Royal est, à ce propos, très éloquent. En pointe sur la communication participative, l’échec à peine croyable de son site témoigne aussi du danger d’un excès de confiance de l’agence web en charge de ce projet : un suicide numérique en somme.

Ce raté invraisemblable était, bien entendu, relayé comme une traînée de poudre sur la toile et notamment dans un article impitoyable de 20minutes.fr : «Rassurez-moi, c’est un fake, un hoax, un bug, une blague?», s’interroge le webproducteur Nicolas Voisin, sur Twitter. La mise en ligne, mardi en fin d’après-midi, de la nouvelle version du site Désirs d’avenir (DA), de Ségolène Royal a semé la stupeur sur le site de micro-blogging.

Après un nombre incalculable d’erreurs, le site s’affiche finalement. Premier choc : le design. Un coucher de soleil – visiblement un fond d’écran d’ordinateur récupéré sur le net- sert d’image de fond en page d’accueil. Sur son blog politique, Marc Vasseur y voit un «revival des années 90». «On pourrait penser à un faux grossier, une blague de potaches… non ce truc hideux a coûté près de 40.000 euros…», poursuit-il. D’autres, à l’instar du blogueur Embruns, y trouve une ressemblance avec un site de secte: «Mon mari rentre du boulot, voit le site DA à l’écran : “C’est le site des Témoins de Jehovah?”».

A tel point que certains s’interrogent sur un possible piratage du site, même dans les médias: «Histoire de vérifier s’il ne s’agissait pas d’un piratage du véritable site, Rue89 a quand même contacté l’entourage de Ségolène Royal, qui nous a confirmé qu’il ne s’agissait pas d’une attaque malveillante, mais bien du nouveau site», peut-on lire. «Toutes les fautes ont été accumulées», estime pour sa part Net & Sans détour, «design cheap, glauque et peu engageant, concept erroné, des liens vides et mal renseignés».

Et les fautes ne concernent pas que le design. L’architecture du site Internet est basique, note-on sur Internet, proche de celle d’un blog. Jambon buzz s’inquiète également d’un autre aspect : le référencement. «Ce nouveau site est une catastrophe pour un référencement qui n’avait pas l’air mauvais. (…) un site laid, illisible par les moteurs de recherches et fortement attaquable. Il conclut avec un «message au donneur d’ordre de ce site : vous vous êtes fait entuber bien profond.»

L’heure du bilan, notamment à Marseille
Novices pour la plupart dans ce domaine, les hommes politiques ont été les premiers à s’être pris les pieds dans la Toile. Aujourd’hui, forts de leur expérience issue des précédentes campagnes électorales, ils entendent bien éviter les mêmes écueils quitte à, comme le Président Sarkozy, rectifier le tir et pallier les défaillances de ses conseillers Internet sans ménagement.

Car désormais, la recette du succès sur le Net tient dans un savant mélange d’anticipation, de proximité et du choix judicieux des équipes. On se souvient de la dernière campagne municipale menée dans la cité phocéenne et dont « Marseille, un autre regard » a été un observateur privilégié.

Tandis que Jean-Claude Gaudin fut difficile à convaincre sur l’opportunité du Web, son adversaire socialiste, Jean-Noël Guérini anticipait déjà, non sans perspicacité, l’importance croissante des nouvelles technologies.

Ayant constitué ses équipes dès son entrée dans la bataille, en septembre 2007, il conserva ainsi une longueur d’avance sur sa stratégie de communication tout en misant sur la proximité et l’ouverture. Ainsi, une véritable armée d’internautes fut levée pour relayer les propos du candidat alors que le maire sortant, Jean-Claude Gaudin misait, 5 mois plus tard, sur une peopolisation de son site de campagne (avec des champions de sport, des stars de télés…), ce qui a failli lui couter la victoire. Il l’admet in petto aujourd’hui.

Conscient qu’un déni du Net peut être synonyme de défaite, l’édile marseillais a d’ores et déjà procédé à une refonte de son site officiel. Avec une bannière minimaliste offrant comme information la seule déclinaison des agendas de l’hyper actif patron qu’il est : maire, sénateur et président du comité de la majorité, entre autres… Toutefois, aucune possibilité pour les internautes de commenter. On donne à voir, pas à commenter! Silence ! Pas d’interactivité donc. Mais avec quelques vidéos, ce qui est une évolution notable et salutaire. Dommage de ne pas en faire plus car J.-C. Gaudin y excelle. vraiment.

Les citoyens devront aller voir ailleurs pour s’exprimer. Un site Internet très début des années 2000…Figé, on vous dit ! C’est un choix, respectable, mais difficile à accepter pour les internautes d’aujourd’hui… Nul doute qu’une fois encore Jean-Claude Gaudin s’inscrit pleinement dans la politique conduite par son parti, incitant ministres et autres élus locaux à suivre l’exemple présidentiel en se rappropriant leur communication et stratégie Web. Mais du côté de la mairie de Marseille, pour l’heure, on est encore loin du compte : pas de blog, pas de compte vidéo. Une offensive Facebook semble néanmoins se mettre en place. L’ensemble est plutôt bien référencé.

Jean-Noël Guérini, quant à lui, n’a pas à rougir. Il fut l’un des premiers à s’être doté d’un blog qui, selon les classements, arrivent dans le top 100 des sites politiques les plus consultés de France. Conscient de la puissance de tir de l’image. On ne compte plus ses vidéos sur le web. Son compte vidéo personnel Dailymotion (hors campagne) vient de dépasser les 15 000 visionnages… Et sa présence sur Facebook omniprésente : 4600 amis (le maximum étant 5000), et une dizaine de groupe de soutien comptant pas moins de 12 000 contacts.

Ainsi, tous les élus locaux l’ont compris, le web est désormais incontournable. Mais la règle du jeu est désormais claire pour eux : préférer la compétence technologique et la proximité aux stars surmédiatisées des agences web nationales, fort coûteuses et pas forcément très efficaces…

Greg Combet, Minister for Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science, today met with a range of United States Government officials in Washington DC, at the Pentagon and at the US Department of State, to discuss defence-related aspects of our alliance.
Mr Combet is in Washington to advance our Defence relationship, including aspects of our materiel and research cooperation.
“Australia and the United States have built a strong defence partnership through close cooperation on areas of mutual interest. Today was an important opportunity for me to renew that cooperation with key officials in the Obama Administration,” Mr Combet said.
The meetings included the Deputy Secretary for Defense, Mr William Lynn III; the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Ms Ellen Tauscher; and the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Dr Ashton Carter.
“Our strong relationship with the United States Government is critical for the delivery of our current major capability programs, and will be essential for the delivery of our future force.
“I was able to discuss the high level of cooperation we are enjoying on current major projects such as the Joint Strike Fighter. This has given us a wonderful insight into the project. I was also able to get further briefings to those I have received at the Fort Worth facility on the progress of the project.
“Australia’s partnership in the JSF Program has provided Australian industry with the opportunity to become part of the F-35 global supply and support chain.
“Just as importantly I was able to discuss future cooperation regarding the development of Australia’s future submarine with some of the key officials in the Obama Administration. A key area of interest was the parallels between procurement reforms being pursued by the Rudd Government and the Obama Administration.”
To further this potential area of cooperation Mr Combet met with senior research and engineering officials at the Pentagon, including Assistant Secretary Navy – Research and Acquisition and the Director of Defense Research and Engineering.
Mr Combet also took the opportunity to reinforce Australia’s support for the ratification of the Defence Trade Cooperation Treaty.
Cooperation through a Defence Trade Cooperation Treaty will serve to further strengthen the relationship between our two countries. The treaty will enhance Australia-US interoperability in defence and counterterrorism activities, improve cooperation on joint research and capability development projects and expand opportunities for Australian industry.
“We look forward to its ratification and the benefits on trade in controlled defence goods and technology that it will bring for both countries,” Mr Combet said.
“The United States Administration has expressed support for the Treaty, and its desire for quick US Senate ratification of the Defense Trade Cooperation Treaty.”
Apart from his meetings at the Pentagon and Department of State, Mr Combet also met with officials of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and committee member Senator Jim Webb.
“I appreciated the opportunity to discuss with the Committee the Defence Treaty and the conditions required for implementation. I was also able to discuss recent developments in regards to Climate Change with Senator Webb,” Mr Combet said.

Original script with 17th century language with modern 1990s scenes, acting and music: American setting, drug-fueled party, and Radiohead soundtrack (good mix of variety of music). 90s pop-culture mashed with top-class 17th century language.

Great modernisations: Guns have ’sword’ written on them.